Public Papers and Letters of Oliver Max Gardner: Governor of North Carolina, 1929-1933

acreage is reduced; that next year we shall enlarge our
policy of live-at-home farming which was endorsed at
the four governors' conference in Charlotte last week;
and that we are unwilling to ditch the program which is
already working successfully in this State and substitute
experimentation in legislation for acreage reduction--
that in so far as North Carolina is concerned legislation
does not offer the most promising remedy or relief.

When I asked Governor Sterling of Texas to call a
cotton conference in Memphis early in September, I
had in mind a discussion of the whole subject of Southern agriculture with a view to consolidating our position
in the South and after agreeing upon a general plan of
action to present it to President Hoover and urge him to
call an international conference on cotton. This telegram and invitation, which was declined by Governor Sterling, was prepared by Dr. Clarence Poe, Senator J. W. Bailey, and myself. Legislative action was not
mentioned in it; nor was legislation discussed by us. I
am sure I had no idea of recommending that it be made
a crime for a North Carolina farmer to plant what his
judgment dictates he should plant on his land, and I
know Senator Bailey was far from advocating such
legislation. If Dr. Poe favored legislation then, he did
not so state it to me.

After careful consideration of the whole subject and
after giving a sympathetic hearing to those who proposed calling a special session of the General Assembly,
it is my mature judgment that neither the Texas plan
nor any plan calling for reduction enforced by special
legislation will solve our problem or will be for the best
interests of agriculture in North Carolina. In this view
I am supported by the Council of State, by a decided
majority of the members of the General Assembly, by
our trained experts in agriculture, and from information
in my office by a great majority of the people of North
Carolina, representing all classes of citizens--including

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